Have you learnt why Obsidian’s newest obscure RPG is named Pentiment? The phrase (not an actual one) comes from the time period pentimento, which refers to a change an artist makes to their work as progress on the undertaking continues. Pentimento, in flip, comes from the Italian pentirsi, which suggests to repent or change your thoughts. Given the sport is about historical past, and what we do or don’t consider within the recorded annals of our shared previous, it’s a really becoming phrase to sit down atop the entire thing.
And now, roughly 18 months after Xbox’s most peculiar unique first got here to Series X/S, the historical past of Pentiment is very likely being altered once more as its standing as a Microsoft-only sport hangs within the steadiness, with the hand of destiny aching to ink the phrases ‘PlayStation’ and ‘Nintendohttps://www.vg247.com/platforms/swap’ beneath its title plate. How becoming. How poetic.
It shouldn’t work. A hand-painted, 2D detective thriller a few sequence of brutal murders set within the bucolic countryside of Sixteenth-century Bavaria – nobody goes to wish to play that, are they? It’s the form of sport you’d examine on Eurogamer on a Sunday, or that your grandad would ask you about subsequent time you head over for a last-minute Easter lunch. In opposition to its Xbox-exclusive stablemates (Hi-Fi Rush, Halo, Forza, Starfield), it appears wholly misplaced.
However its give attention to meals, font, and felonies weaves collectively in such a straightforward, confident manner, it’s hard not to fall in love with Pentiment the second you pick it up. Perhaps it is within the meals – large plates of scran offered in lush element, geared toward immediately immersing you within the lifetime of a Bavarian dwelling within the Holy Roman Empire – or perhaps it is within the lush, dense setting of Tassing and its storied Kiersau Abbey. Perhaps it’s the way in which the sport treats font; as vital and narratively vital as any character given a voice in a extra modern-set sport.
Or perhaps it is within the peculiar intrigue of the story, impressed by Umberto Eco’s The Identify of the Rose, and obsessive about capturing the feel of historical past in the identical manner. No matter it’s that makes Pentiment so fascinating, it appears common. Go and skim any evaluation or essay in regards to the sport and its impression – not even two years since launch – and also you’ll see Obsidian’s thorns have hooked in various cortices since November 2022.
It’s merely not like any sport I’ve ever performed earlier than. Sure, it’s an Obsidian RPG, and which means (like Pillars of Eternity, or The Outer Worlds, and even Alpha Protocol) it’s going to be thematically wealthy, an entire world, and good about the way it doles out these narrative beats. However the way in which it tells this story, in full acts, with intermissions, and time-skips that’d make David ‘Cloud Atlas’ Mitchell blush… it is impressed.
Then there’s the stress between so many contrasting components that colors the world additional; the blossoming seeds of capitalism versus socialism, faith versus secularism, know-how versus custom, man versus nature. The sport forces you to look at how all of them intersect and intertwine, and – in nice RPG style – it’s by no means as easy or one-sided as you’d suppose.
Making selections and ethical selections based mostly on a basic understanding that nothing you are able to do is the fitting alternative actually reinforces the character of being alive in protagonist Andreas Mahler’s period is an inconceivable process. Simply as it’s to stay in any period, in any location, actually, for those who’re awake to the horrible implications of all of it.
![Andreas Mahler explains his background to a friend in Pentiment.](https://assetsio.reedpopcdn.com/Pentiment-backgrounds.jpg?width=690&quality=70&format=jpg&auto=webp)
I believe loads of Pentiment’s success stems from the very fact it was an unashamed ardour undertaking from Josh Sawyer (of Fallout New Vegas fame). Personally obsessive about themes of technological upheaval, social reform, and the inexorable nature of change – this was even clear in New Vegas, for those who’re trying – Sawyer’s inky fingerprints are throughout Pentiment. He studied early fashionable historical past in school, his maternal household tree has roots in Bavaria, and (as he puts it himself) “historical past accommodates the whole lot cool that has ever occurred”.
Pentiment is multiple man’s undertaking, in fact, however it’s clear to see how he led and directed his crew to make one thing wholly consultant of who he’s, of what he stands for, of the by means of line between the place he got here from and the place he’s now. And now that it’s coming to different platforms – escaping from ‘the locked Xbox of historical past’, if you’ll – extra individuals than ever have the possibility to expertise this unbelievable sport.
Pentiment is among the most vital and efficient video games I’ve performed… nicely, ever. I believe it tells a narrative that may solely be instructed in a online game, and I believe it tells that story very nicely. In the event you care about the way in which this artwork type is maturing, and the way it’s letting artists inform their particular tales in particular methods, I implore you: play Pentiment.
I think about it’ll be a fully great game-on-the-go by way of Nintendo Swap, too.